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“Oh, Yeshua, I loved him so.”
“I know you did Mother.”
The last breath on this side of heaven exhaled, Yoseph lies quiet.
“He loved you Yeshua and all you kids. He was a wonderful father.” The others leave the room, Maria and Yeshua are alone.
“I don’t think I ever mentioned to you what almost happened when I told him I was pregnant.”
“Please tell me Mother.”
“I had no doubt in my mind when Gabriel told me I was to be your mother, to bear a son without ever knowing a man. To be the earthy vessel to give birth to the Messiah. I waited to tell Yoseph until I was sure I was pregnant. God didn’t tell me when I would become pregnant, although I suspected it was the night Gabriel spoke to me.”
“What did Father say when you told him?”
“He became pale, yelled and ran.”
“Ran?”
“Turned and ran. I wasn’t sure what to expect next. It was several days before he came back.”
“And then?”
“He told me he had a dream from God telling him to marry me because I really had been faithful to him and was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.”
“God does intervene when the time is right.”
“But there were others who were intervening too.”
“Others?”
“Spirits, they did not want you to be born; they gave Yoseph dreams to have me stoned for unfaithfulness. He did not sleep for days. He had the dream to marry me after he decided not to have me stoned but to divorce me quietly.”
“God’s timing!”
“True and by the time we were married I was showing. Other members of our families would not come to our wedding. They would not even talk to us. Yoseph felt really bad for me. He continued to work but told me to go visit my cousin Elisabet. He knew she would understand. It was such a wonderful visit until it was time for her to deliver.”
“And she delivered a healthy baby boy, my cousin Yohan?”
“When the relatives started to come for the birth, they told me to leave.”
“Why?”
“The same reason I was shunned here. I became pregnant before Yoseph and I were living together.”
“A few months later we went to Yoseph’s ancestral home to register and pay taxes. I was close to delivering you. There were many descendants of King David living there, they had known Yoseph for a long time. But they had also heard the rumors about us. No one would let us stay with them: we were sinful people. And the inn was full. You looked so sweet in that manger all wrapped up in rags.”
Looking into each other in the eyes, they laugh and hug.
“Things did get better though, didn’t they? My childhood was wonderful.”
“They went smoothly until you were twelve years old and stayed back in Jerusalem after the Passover.”
“I remember. You two were really upset.”
“Upset! I thought Yoseph was going to have a heart attack. He kept saying over and over, ‘I’ve lost God’s Son. I’ve lost the Son of God.’”
Laughing, tears roll down their faces.
“He was really protective of you after that!” Smiling with a twinkle in her eye. “I wish he could be here now as you are about to start your public ministry.”
“I would have liked that too.” Heavenly Father, thank You for my earthly Father and thank You he will not be here to see My suffering. I believe he would have tried to protect Me from that too.” “Father’s job here was done; he is receiving his rewards.”
Falling into each other’s arms, “Yeshua, what am I to do now?”
“Follow Me, Mother. Follow Me.”
“Where?”
“Well, we’ve been invited to a wedding.”
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